


modern love (walks beside me)

by DuendeJunior



Category: Free!
Genre: Accidental Sexting, College, Future Fic, M/M, Near Future, alcohol mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 05:49:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4654737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DuendeJunior/pseuds/DuendeJunior
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a series of pictures featuring a very naked Hazuki Nagisa on Sousuke's phone in that moment.</p>
<p>The only problem is, he's sure he wasn't the intended recipient.</p>
            </blockquote>





	modern love (walks beside me)

**Author's Note:**

> Written in one afternoon for the prompt _“I got drunk and sent a sexy naked pic to my ex but I sent it to you instead by mistake”_ , found on Tumblr. Title comes from David Bowie's "Modern Love" (it's kinda rubbish and I am sorry). Mentions of past Nagisa/Rei and the tiniest hint of past Sousuke/someone (I couldn't decide who'd be that someone so I'm leaving it up to your imaginations).
> 
> Unrevised work, any mistakes are my own fault.

  
Sousuke found it hard to recall how he got Nagisa’s number. It could have been back at Samezuka Academy’s Cultural Festival, it could have been during the following summer, it could have happened any month in between Sousuke’s graduation and the last friendly gathering before a new semester in college - hell, maybe Rin was the one to save it to his phone. Either way, the thing was: he had Nagisa’s number.

And in that moment, he also had a series of pictures featuring a _very naked_ Hazuki Nagisa on his messenger app.

The feeling the whole thing was a big misunderstanding had surfaced the moment his phone first beeped and he found a series of short, run-on - and mostly misspelled - messages coming from Nagisa. It was the first time any of them sent anything to the other and, considering the fact Nagisa kept on calling him “Rei-chan” after every second sentence, Sousuke wasn’t even the intended recipient in the first place.

How in the world did Nagisa manage to select “Yamazaki” instead of “Ryugazaki” - if it was really Ryugazaki he wanted - on his contacts screen was a mistake Sousuke chalked up to a bottle of sake or whatever alcoholic beverage the other preferred. Probably something sweet, filled to the brim with strawberries - Rin had commented once or twice about it being Nagisa’s favorite fruit. Sousuke resolutely did not examine why did his brain choose to store that particular bit of information.

Sousuke tried to ignore it at first, but ten messages or so later, he was ready to tell him he’d been talking to the wrong person all along and started typing his reply.

And then.

And then.

In came the pictures.

Three were sent in rapid succession, all of them obviously taken on the bathroom - Nagisa’s own bathroom, Sousuke hoped - and overall he looked freshly showered, his hair all wet. And the only piece of clothing he had on his entire body was a white towel flung over his shoulder.

The first thing Sousuke thought was how good at nonchalant posing Nagisa was, considering how energetic his usual manners were. Also, he didn’t know a dick could be that cute.

And then his mind finished processing what his eyes had just seen, and he chided himself in a very stern manner for being so silly and inappropriate. Right after he snapped his phone shut and threw it on the other side of the room, of course.

He’d never been more thankful for not having a roommate.

Now he was staring at the opposite wall, avoiding the point on the floor where the phone still lay. He knew what the best course of action was - he had to get up, pick it up again, open the app and finish typing the message explaining Nagisa just had sent pretty intimate pictures to a guy who was a friend of a friend, at best, instead to his sweetheart or whatever Ryugazaki was to him.

But there was also the fact it would be a little bit hard to open the app and _not_ see those pictures while he typed, even if it were for mere seconds, and well. Even the brief flashes his brain oh-so-helpfully supplied were enough to make his own dick very interested.

Sousuke felt like a complete creep.

He pulled the pillow from under his head and shoved it into his face to muffle a scream. If only he had ignored the messages from the second he realized something was wrong - the app would show he had visualized only the first ones and, once whatever came upon him had passed, Nagisa would assume he hadn’t seen the rest and delete it without a fuss.

Everything would be so damn _easy_ if Sousuke hadn’t let his curiosity stall him.

He almost tried to take a deep breath, but remembered he still had the pillow pressed against his face and threw it on the general direction of the foot of the bed. Then he inhaled and exhaled slowly, once, twice, five times, and sat up.

He put his feet on the cold floor and stood up, meeting the opposite wall in three long steps. Bending over, he picked up the phone and turned it on his hand to assess the damage - only a few scratches on the lid. He flung down on the bed again, turned the phone on and, bracing himself, opened the app and found Nagisa’s message log.

The third picture was still the last thing sent, and Sousuke swallowed. It was more seductive than he had noticed at first and if some part of him had thought that had a chance to be easy it was being taken out back and shot right in that moment, but he had to do it.

After a while, he stopped to read the result of his typing efforts:

“ _Good evening, Nagisa-kun. I think you’ve intended to send all those messages to someone else, especially the last three ones. You might want to delete those._ ”

It still didn’t look like a good message to him, but he had typed and re-typed the thing more than fifteen times already, and he didn’t know how to word it any better. It was probably the best he could do at 1:15 AM.

Sousuke hit “Send” and, after checking if the message had truly been sent and it wasn’t just the app fucking with him, turned off the phone and the lights in the room. He grabbed the abandoned pillow with his feet and put him under his head again.

Vowing to ignore the persistent heat between his legs, he turned on his stomach and tried to get some sleep.

-

Sousuke didn’t expect Nagisa to _call him the very next day_.

It was a Saturday afternoon and the professor had cancelled the only class scheduled for the day, so he decided to go for a short run around the dorms and then clean up his bedroom a little. He’d been sorting his laundry when the phone started ringing and buzzing on his pocket.

At best, he hoped the whole conversation would be forgotten and the pictures deleted without comment. At worst, Nagisa would send him an embarrassed reply full of crying emojis. Either way, it would be the end of all contact and maybe both of them would change their phone numbers - or just Sousuke. He might have engaged in some over-thinking the night before instead of sleeping.

He fished the phone out of his pocket to answer it.

“... Nagisa-kun?”

“ _Hello, Sou-chan!_ ”, said the vivacious voice on the other side of the line. “ _Erm… How are you? Are you doing well?_ ”

“... Yes?”, Sousuke answered in a puzzled tone. “I’ve been doing fine, mostly. And you…?”

“ _Oh, I’m fine too_ ”. A pause. “ _I’ve seen your message today._ ”

Sousuke swallowed.

“ _Sorry I sent you such embarrassing things…!_ ” Nagisa went on. “ _You were right, those were intended to someone else. I wasn’t in a good state of mind yesterday and didn’t even notice I sent them to the wrong person._ ”

“It’s okay”, he answered. “I... I hope you’re feeling better today.” He was aware Nagisa had said he was fine at the beginning of the conversation, but that “I’m fine too” also had sounded like it was said just out of general politeness.

“ _Don’t worry, I..._ ”. There was another pause. The rhythm of Nagisa’s breathing seemed to be changing - was he crying? Oh dear, was Sousuke even equipped to deal with a crying Nagisa?

“Nagisa-kun?”, he said, a little alarmed.

“ _Like, I meant to send those for Rei, but we’re not even together anymore_ ”, Nagisa said. “ _It would be unwanted either way, but I was so drunk I could not remember that. I’m so stupid…!_ ”

His words were replaced by sobs.

Sousuke sat on his bed. He hadn’t felt that out of his depth in a good while - not since witnessing whatever Rin and Haruka had going on between them during high school. Granted, both situations had no similarity whatsoever to each other, but the feeling of not knowing how to deal was pretty much the same.

At least he had learned from those days that angry ultimatums didn’t solve much on the long run, but on the other hand he still didn’t have many ideas on how to proceed in such cases.

He’d have to improvise.

May the Universe help him.

“If...”, he started, but cut the sentence short. No, he had to try and phrase it better, even if it was a subpar idea. “I am aware that what I’m going to say now might sound really inappropriate and you’re welcome to hang up on me if it offends you, but… I don’t think I would mind if you sent pictures directly to me next time?”

He heard a small sob on the other side, and then a sniffle, and then nothing. Good, he had stopped crying. Now came the part where Nagisa threatened to send Rin - or worse, Makoto - to clock him in the face. Sousuke was sure he’d have no right to be mad if that happened.

“ _... Are you serious, Sou-chan?_ ” Nagisa said at last.

“Yes?”, he answered. “I mean, you are cute and you looked good on those pics. I think I can appreciate that if everyone is on the same page and no one springs anything on anyone out of the blue.”

Another sniffle.

“ _Do you think I’m cute?_ ”, Nagisa asked. He sounded a bit hoarse from all the crying, but his spirits seemed to have lifted a little.

Who would have thought that would work.

“Um. Quite cute, in fact.” His face was heating up. He mouthed another “thank you” to the skies for being the only occupant of the room - and a second one for Rin not being anywhere near to listen to that conversation.

“ _Now you’re the one being cute, Sou-chan_ ”, Nagisa said, and Sousuke felt there was a hint of laughter in his voice. He cleared his throat.

“Just to clarify: I’m not offering a rebound or anything of the sort. You sound like your break-up with Ryugazaki is recent and in those cases it’s better to avoid jumping into anything serious right away”. Sousuke kind of hated he knew all this from first-hand experience, but hey, at least he could put said knowledge to good use. “But if you ever feel the need to share anything that wouldn’t look platonic enough to share with anyone else… I’m here, I guess.”

“ _You don’t sound very certain_ ”, Nagisa pointed out.

“I just came up with everything I said and part of my blood is very much not in my head”, Sousuke said. “Hell, what I said about you hanging up and maybe sending an assassin to off me still stands.”

Nagisa’s startled laugh was a little too loud for a phone conversation, but it wasn’t too bad a sound.

“ _I never thought you were so dramatic, Sousuke. I had you pegged as the silent, no-nonsense type._ ”

“Years of close friendship with Rin Matsuoka can do that to a person. Don’t know how Haruka escaped unscathed.”

“ _Haru-chan has other ways of demonstrating it_ ”. Nagisa said, and sighed. “ _Well, there isn’t anything preventing us to try, right?_ ”

Sousuke hummed in agreement.

“ _OK, I have to go now. Bye, Sou-chan._ ”

“Bye, Nagisa.”

The call ended. Sousuke stood up and put his phone back on his jeans’ pocket. He stretched - he always forgot the bed was too close to the floor for comfort until he spent more than five minutes sitting on it.

His phone beeped again as soon as he turned back to the pile of yet unsorted laundry.

He picked it up and saw it - a new message from Nagisa.

It was a new picture.

This time, Nagisa wore actual clothes - a white and pink jacket and a shirt with a print that resembled a penguin underneath- and he was at some sort of coffee shop judging from the background. He was giving a slightly devious wink to the camera, his lips pursed in the gesture of sending a kiss. The caption read simply “ _thank you_ ”.

Sousuke had been wrong if he thought he had seen cute before.

He was so, so screwed.


End file.
